WNAM MONITORING: A newly clinched partnership treaty between Russia and North Korea this week underscored both a manifestly elevated level of mutual security support, and their weaknesses in the face of crippling sanctions and diplomatic isolation, U.S. experts said Wednesday.
Analysts also raised questions over the future of the two countries’ cooperation under the “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty, saying it could be affected by the uncertainty-laden trajectory of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the U.S. presidential election in November and China’s oversize role in regional geopolitics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed the treaty during their highly symbolic summit in Pyongyang on Wednesday (Korea time), an event carefully watched by Seoul, Washington and others for its security and geopolitical implications.
Putin said that the treaty provides for mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the two countries, while Kim declared the bilateral relationship has been upgraded to the level of alliance — a term that Putin fell short of uttering.
“This is a renewal of Cold War-era security guarantees, no doubt,” Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
“Except this time it is based on mutual transactional needs — artillery for Russia and high-end military technology for DPRK. They are united not by ideology as in the Cold War but common opposition to the U.S. and the western liberal order,” he added.
DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
A lack of clarity on the specifics of the treaty has raised questions over whether it is similar to an outright military alliance treaty or one just shy of a collective defense arrangement that calls for one party to automatically intervene in case of an attack on the other.
Though many concur that the treaty signifies a new level of mutual security commitments, experts were split over what the treaty might mean.
Scott Snyder, president of the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI), said that the treaty appears to establish “more reliable” support for Russian assistance to North Korea in the event of a conflict, as he cast it as a “step toward addressing acute North Korean fears of isolation.”
“The main geopolitical implication is that the Korean conflict is less localized and more likely to be viewed in the context of global geostrategies, enmeshing outside actors such as the U.S. and Russia more directly in peninsular tensions,” he said.
Some experts cast doubts over whether the treaty will lead each country to go as far as to commit troops to support the other in a contingency.
“While I don’t think either side would send troops to each other’s aid if some unexpected military confrontation with the West occurred, I do think it would mean a massive mutual stepping up of support,” Harry Kazianis, president of Rogue States Project, a security think tank, said.
“For example, you could see Russia send North Korea air defense systems, advanced ballistic missiles, and even trainers to help if the Second Korean War were to ever resume — a sort of revenge for Western Ukraine war aid to Kyiv, if you will,” he said.
Patrick Cronin, chair for Asia-Pacific Security at the Hudson Institute, said that Russia and the North “will always fall short of a true alliance.”
“Today, Russia and North Korea have a special defense partnership, but not an alliance. There is no credible mechanism or political will to fight for each other or develop a joint military strategy,” he said. “There is, however, a mutual desire to show solidarity in opposition to a U.S.-led order.”
Sydney Seiler, former intelligence officer at the U.S. National Intelligence Council, said that Russia’s commitment to Pyongyang in the treaty may be “more rhetorical than practical,” particularly when one can hardly imagine South Korea and the United States launching an abrupt attack on the North.
“I get a sense this comprehensive strategic partnership as well as the summit itself is not really designed to make new breakthroughs, but rather to have a demonstration to the world of this new partnership of this cooperation between Russia and North Korea, and this open challenge to the Western liberal order,” he said.
Seiler raised the prospects of future developments affecting the treaty possibly in a negative sense.
“There’s always a sense that things will evolve going forward,” he said. “How long will the war (in Ukraine) last? If the war begins to wind down and there’s less need for North Korea’s support. A lot of these elements could be reversed.”
Clint Work, director of academic affairs at the KEI, also enumerated variables that can affect conditions for cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.
“Those conditions may change depending on how the war in Ukraine plays out, how U.S. policy itself may shift under Trump — if he is elected — as well as how China responds to Moscow and Pyongyang’s enhanced cooperation,” Work said.
He also noted that he does not necessarily view the increased security commitments between the North and Russia as a sign of their renewed strength.
“In fact, I see it as a sign of their respective weaknesses as well as the profound constraints that they face yet simultaneously and somewhat contradictorily, their willingness and ability to push boundaries, set the initiative, and demonstrate that U.S. and international sanctions regimes have distinct limits,” he said.
The treaty came as the North and Russia have been stepping up defense cooperation amid Moscow’s protracted war in Ukraine. Pyongyang has provided Russia with dozens of ballistic missiles and more than 11,000 containers of munitions, while the North has been seeking assistance from Moscow, including fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and ballistic missile production equipment, according to U.S. officials.
The bilateral treaty at this juncture could benefit Putin more than Kim, Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at RAND, indicated.
“I think this agreement is what I call the ‘Putin Trap’: Putin has annexed four Ukrainian provinces as part of Russia. If Ukraine does a counteroffensive into these territories, they have invaded Russia as far as Putin is concerned, and he can call on Kim to provide North Korean forces to help defend Russia,” he said.
“Big mistake on Kim’s part, given that in reality the United States and South Korea have no interest in attacking North Korea.”
Noting that the North Korean and Russian leaders’ explicit desire for sturdier cooperation has heightened security uncertainties, some analysts anticipated greater momentum for security cooperation among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo.
“I think this sets the pretext for a formalization of the U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral security relationship in the context of the NATO summit next month,” Cha said. “I would like to see a collective security declaration between the three — threats to one are a threat to all.”
Frank Aum, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace, underscored the need for Washington and its allies to work harder to curb burgeoning ties between the North and Russia.
“Their enhanced cooperation means that the Russia will continue to have the capabilities to prosecute its war in Ukraine conflict and North Korea will continue to have the nutritional, military, and energy assistance it needs to act in whatever way it pleases and avoid engaging with the U.S.,” he said.
“The U.S. and its allies should have taken more steps to forestall or mitigate the growing Russia-North Korea ties, just as China has taken steps through the recent trilateral summit to enhance economic and people-to-people relations with South Korea and Japan.”
Amid all the pomp and ceremony surrounding the Pyongyang summit, China might be a key spectator with keen interest in how relations between the North and Russia evolve, analysts said.
“China is likely nervous … Pyongyang is prioritizing Moscow over Beijing because Moscow is willing to give Kim more than Beijing is,” Seiler said.
“This is a more flagrant proclamation that Russia is moving beyond sanctions. It is going to engage North Korea as it is independent of the nuclear issue, independent of the progress of denuclearization.”
